Confusion

[Star_Bright]

Going by your own strength is likely going to be far harder than you expect...and far more likely to cause recurrences like today.

 

Rather than that...go to your Sprint store, request a phone number change, and see what it would take to do a phone upgrade. Nix on the Blackberry...the EVO is the shizzz if you're in 4G market. :)

 

Unfortunately I'm in a "fly-over zone" and the best we've got is sometimes-reliable 3G.

 

I think my new job pays for smart phones so I will see what I can do and just tell everyone I changed my number because I got a new phone and plan. I've had this number FOREVER but I guess it's better than being contacted by him when I'm not ready to be, because it's still the same old same old.

[Owl]

Check out the android phones...the Samsung Moment is pretty awesome IMHO too.

[Star_Bright]

Ok! I'm only familiar with Blackberry but whatever can hook up to my work email account!

[Star_Bright]

Some of the qualities of your MM sound very familiar. You will update, right?

 

Good luck Star Bright.

 

Yes. It sucks to find this out. I will update. I'm trying to stay strong.

[Brokenlady]

He had started to tell his friends about us and take me out with them. This weekend he said one of his friends knew he was seeing someone else but didn't know it was me (I had met this friend of his quite a few times before in a business context, not the OW context). He told me his friend thinks his affair is with a woman that MM went to lunch with about a month ago while I was out of state visiting my family (after MM's wife found out about us). The woman is a former colleague of MM's that MM has told me he had worked very closely with, had the chance to have an affair with, and everyone thought he may be having an affair with her, but he wasn't. He hadn't told me he had gone to lunch with her until this weekend.

 

When I became upset he said I have nothing to worry about, it was nine years ago and it was just a coincidence that he ran into her again. He also added that at the time we were "broken up" because his wife had found out about me and I was with my family trying to figure out what to do. Call me paranoid but I feel like he was trying to start up something again with this woman to keep his options open. At the very least it was dishonest of him not to have told me about having lunch with her for a month, and when I called him out on it he admitted he wouldn't like it if I had done the same, but then claimed she was just a friend like his male friends so he didn't think it was worth mentioning.

 

SB,

This feels like schoolyard nonsense. He's trying to make you jealous (SB, if you aren't around when I leave my M, someone else will be). It's manipulative, and incredibly lame. Further - is that supposed to make you feel special - I could have cheated with her, but I waited and chose you instead? That's backwards compliment if I ever saw one.

 

And think about this - why would he want this friend to believe that he's having an A with this other woman? Is it cool to throw her under the bus? Something is awry in dodge city here.

 

You mentioned before that he has this misplaced jealousy with you (after all, who the heck is he to worry about you dating when he goes home to his W every night). I suspect this is an outcrop of that. It's not a great relationship style, and one wonders about his tendency to poke you with a stick this way going forward if you do end up together.

[Brokenlady]

I've thought about this a lot and I don't know if I know all the answers yet. In the beginning I didn't think he would leave his family and I didn't want him to. It sounds so bad, it is bad, but I just wanted a fling. We had this crazy connection I wanted to explore and it felt like one of those movies where the guy is wrong for you but you can't help yourself. I know this is bad but I'm just trying to be honest. So at the beginning I never thought of him as a partner. In fact I thought he was a player and assumed he regularly cheated on his wife and, again, please don't reach through the screen and strangle me, but I just wanted to see what all of these crazy feelings for him were about.

 

This is one of those moments where you see your car headed for the tree and you find yourself not swerving away like you should. Somewhere, somehow, you knew this wasn't going to end well, but something drove you on. What is it?

 

But, as I've stated, the dynamic of our relationship seems to have been that he starts out saying that he won't leave his family no matter what, then starts talking about leaving them even though I never asked him to. At that point we were in deep and I was beginning to realize I had gotten more than I thought I had signed up for. He was telling me he loved me, that I was his everything, that he wanted to leave for me. And it started to make me feel like, well, I can't just have an affair anymore, it is wrong to both me and her. Yeah, nice time to think of the wife, I know. But I began to question how he could be telling me one thing and her the other. So I told him I could no longer do it and that's when he started talking very concretely about leaving her. So now I think maybe part of him wanted to leave her all along and he was wanting me to help him do that? I don't know. It all happened very fast and is very confusing, hence the title of my thread. So then he keeps telling me he's leaving, maybe to get me to stay I guess, but I didn't ever tell him to leave, and I guess that's why he's gotten upset with me, and said I need to accept the reality that being with me means he won't be with them, and I need to help him through it. I felt so frustrated, thinking, I never asked him to leave, but I can see how he took me wanting out as an ultimatum, or pressure, or a challenge, or something, although I really feel like he brought that on internally, because he knew that me leaving meant he couldn't have me, and he had to make a choice, and maybe partly wanted to leave all along anyway. I wonder if I'm making sense? But writing this out is helping me figure it out.

 

He changed the rules and you violated your own rules about keeping it just a fling. That's enough to throw anyone off balance.

 

It seems you're really trying to not have to feel responsible if he does leave his family. It seems like a heavy burden to carry, but understand that he is the one doing the leaving if it happens, not you. Own your part of the affair, and try to find a way to accept that what has happened has happened, but you cannot control what he decides to do. You are no more responsible for his leaving than if he decides to stay. It might help to remind youself of the actual limits of what is truly under your control. (On some level, I get the sense that a big part of you wants him to stay in the M just so you can look at yourself in the mirror and feel like at least you didn't "destroy" the family).

 

I guess another part of my "cold feet" is that I'm afraid of being hurt. It was all "safe" and fun while we were an affair but if we were actually to be a couple I know I would doubt his ability to be faithful. He is also pretty needy and insecure. When I was with my family in another state he kept asking me whether I had been with anyone else and whether I had stayed faithful to him. This frustrated me to no end because he's the only guy I think about sexually or emotionally. I guess I should say here that the sex is off the charts and I know that's a big reason both of us have stayed in it. So it rattled my mind to think he was thinking I would even want to have sex with anyone else when I have told him constantly that no one has done or could match what we have sexually. I worry that if we are together he will always be suspicious and clingy. It seems that because he hates to be alone he has a tendency to get needy and to expect to be the center of his partner's world. Sadly he IS the center of his wife's world but that still isn't good enough for him. That's what scares me about being with him.

 

Some people seek out A's because they are a known quantity - they have definitive limits you can chalk up to something other than yourself. And they're good for keeping distance, which is insanely attractive to people who have trust and intimacy issues. You might want to explore why you were comfortabe with that distance - do you have trouble trusting, etc?

 

Finally, a reason I get cold feet is that I don't feel like I'm in the place to be in a serious relationship (or affair, which is why I'm getting out). I think there is something wrong with me that I would do something that goes against what I believe to be right. I don't think I could treat him or anyone else right until I treat myself right and love myself and until I'm happy on my own. I feel co-dependent on him and I want to only be dependent on myself. I want to take a good six months to a year and not date ANYONE, even him. For this reason I would think it ideal if he separated and spent awhile thinking about what he truly wanted, and if he got healthier and divorced on his own accord, we would have a much better shot of making it in the long-run. But I don't think he would do that because he is afraid of being along with himself. So I am going to do what I think I need to do anyway and whatever happens with him, happens. Sometimes I feel like I play the role of his counselor and the funny thing is, I'm too F-ed up right now to be anyone's counselor! I need to take care of myself and I would like him to take care of himself too.

 

MM seem to do this alot. Too bad we don't get the insurance payments, . It sounds like you have some genuine self-worth issues...are you planning to get into IC?

 

What I want is to be in a healthy fulfilling committed relationship with him, but if that isn't possible I want to be alone. In fact I don't think I can truly be in a healthy fulfilling committed relationship with him until I am alone for awhile and in a healthy state myself. But I would be willing to try to work on myself WITH him if he left her of his own accord. I am not willing to drag him away from her or even to sit and listen to him waffle about whether he wants to stay or go. And if I can't be in a healthy fulfilling committed relationship with him then I am going to wait until I find someone with whom I have passion, open conversations, a physical and emotional connection, everything I have with him, except someone with whom I can be in a REAL relationship.

 

One of the most annoyig things by far about MM is that they so often force the women into choosing for them. And you are absolutely right to suspect that this failure to act on a real choice will cause you doubts and issues later - ask me how I know.

 

First and foremost I just want to be happy and I don't even know how to get there but I'm trying!

 

Definitely take care of yourself, first and foremost. You'll figure it out.

[WowReally]

I'm really trying to understand why this happens. Why do they say they love us and want to be with us and stay there? Why do we fall for it?

 

Honestly I guess I really was fortunate that my xMM really didnt' blow too much smoke when it came to "us". No promises of a life that he knew he couldn't produce, no words that would lead me to believe things that really werent there. We were very addicted to eachother but in a weird twisted way he knew not to lie to me and paint a picture to entice me to stay.

 

I think that's what's making the NC bearable right now...I know if I broke down the texts we would trade would be empty and meaningless at this point. It's decision time no more time or energy for the head games